will then have fome notion at least, for what they are beaten: but, let me intreat you, before this charivari begins, to draft off your fteady hounds: An animal to whom we owe fo much good diverfion, should not be ill used unneceffarily.-When a hare is put into a kennel, the huntsman and both the whippers-in fhould be prefent, and the whippers-in should flog every hound, calling him by his name, and rating him as often as he is near the hare, and upon this occafion they cannot cut them too hard, or rate them too much; when they think they have chastised them enough, the hare should then be taken away, the huntfman fhould halloo off his hounds, and the whippersin fhould rate them to him.- -If any one loves hare more than the reft, you may tie a dead one round his neck, flogging him and rating him at the fame time. This poffibly may make him afhamed of it, I never bought a lot of hounds in my life that were not obliged to undergo this discipline;-either hares are lefs plentiful in other countries, or other sportsmen are lefs nice in making their hounds fteady from them.'-Again, When hounds are unfteady, every poffible means fhould be taken to make them otherwise.—A hare, or a deer, put into the kennel amongst them, may then be neceffary. Huntf men are too fond of kennel difcipline. You already know my opi nion of it. I never allow it, but in cafes of great neceffity.-I then am always prefent myself, to prevent the excess of it. To prevent an improper and barbarous ufe of fuch difcipline, I have already told you, is one of the chief objects of these Letters.If what Montaigne fays be true," that there is a certain general claim of kindnefs and benevolence, which every creature has a right to from us," furely we ought not to fuffer unneceffary feverity to be ufed with an animal, to whom we are obliged for fo much diverfion: and what opinion ought we to have of the huntfman, who inflicts it on an animal to whom be owes his daily bread. Such of my hounds as are very riotous, are taken out by themfelves on the days when they do not hunt, and properly punished; and this is continued whilft my patience lafts; which of course depends on the value of the dog. It is a trial betwixt the whipper-in and the dog, which will tire firft; and the whipper-in, I think, generally prevails.-If this method will not make them fteady, no other can; they then are looked upon as incorrigible, and are put away.' Perhaps it is not the leaft extraordinary circumftance in these flogging lectures, that they should be given with Montaigne, or any other moral author whatever, in recollection at the fame inftant! Our compaffion in the above inftances, is divided between the hounds and the poor animals which are put into fuch a horrid fituation among them: of this expedient we shall produce one more inftance: Various are the methods ufed to break dogs from fheep; fome will couple them to a ram, but that is breaking them with a vengeance; you had better hang them.-A late lord of my acquaintance, who had heard of this method, and whofe whole pack had been often guilty of killing fheep, determined to punish them, and to that intent put the largest ram he could find into his kennel. The men 66 men with their whips and voices, and the ram with his horns, foon put the whole kennel into confufion and difmay, and the hounds and ram were then left together. Meeting a friend foon after, "come," fays he, "come with me to the kennel, and fee what rare fport the ram makes among the hounds; the old fellow lays about him "ftoutly, I affure you-egad he trims them-there is not a dog dare "look him in the face."- His friend, who is a compaffionate man, pitied the hounds exceedingly, and asked if he was not afraid that fome of them might be spoiled- "No, d-n them," said he, they deserve it, and let them fuffer.' On they went—all was quiet-they opened the kennel door, but faw neither ram nor hound. -The ram by this time was entirely eaten up, and the hounds having filled their bellies, were retired to rest.' If any of our Readers need a commentary on these relations, they are fo far produced to very little purpofe: we wish not to give needlefs offence to any one, but leave acknowledged facts to operate as they may. We fhall now fhew by an inftance or two, how young hounds are trained to their business: I know an old fportfman, a clergyman, who enters his young hounds first at a cat, which he drags along the ground for a mile or two, at the end of which he turns out a badger, first taking care to break his teeth; he takes out about two couple of old hounds along with the young ones to hold them on. He never enters his young hounds but at vermin; for he fays, "train up a child in the way fhould go, and when he is old he will not depart from it." be When a divine has acquired the art of dragging a cat a mile or two before young hounds, it is quite natural for him to apply the precepts in his Bible to the objects of his tuition! Our Author, as well as his reverend brother, sometimes turns out a cat for his young hounds to hunt down; and is equally adroit in the management of a badger. The day you intend to run out a fox, or badger, you will do well to fend them amongst hares or deer. A little rating and flogging, before they are encouraged to vermin, is of the greatest use, as it teaches them both what they should, and what they should not do; I have known a badger run feveral miles, if judiciously managed; for which purpose he should be turned Out in a very open country, and followed by a perfon who has more sense than to ride on the line of him. If he does not meet with any cover or hedge in his way, he will keep on for feveral miles; if he does, you will not be able to get him any farther.You fhould give him a great deal of law, and you will do well to break his teeth.' The badger is to have a great deal of law we find, but we hope it is not borrowed from the practice of our courts; for there is very little juftice or equity in adding, that it is doing well to break his teeth! The principal object of the work is fox-hunting, but we shall cite a general obfervation on hunting the bare: I hope, you agree with me, that it is a fault in a pack of harriers to go too faft; for a hare is a little timorous animal, that we cannot help feeling fome compaffion for, at the very time when we are pur fuing her deftruction: we should give scope to all her little tricks, nor kill her foully, and over-matched. Inftinct inftructs her to make a good defence, when not unfairly treated; and I will venture to say, that, as far as her own fafety is concerned, fhe has more cunning than the fox, and makes many fhifts to fave her life, far beyond all his artifice. Without doubt, you have often heard of hares, who, from the miraculous efcapes they have made, have been thought switches; but, I believe, you never heard of a fox that had cunning enough to be thought a wizzard.' Thus the refult of a true fportfman's compaffion, is not to put a fpeedy end to the fufferings of this little timorous animal; but to prolong its terror, until it has tried all the efforts agonized nature can dictate, and until the utmost exertions of its feeble Brength are painfully exhaufted. Here we not only find that even a fportsman confeffes himself subject to compassion, but we care inftructed how to indulge it in the most curious manner ever yet difcovered! Perfons not fo well inftructed in the feelings of fportsmen might have ignorantly imagined that this species of compaffion which intitles the hare to fair treatment, was neither more nor less than filling up the measure of cruelty to the utmoft limits he might have pronounced the object paltry, the mode of deftruction fomewhat beyond brutal, and the triumph ignoble ! We fhall wind up a disagreeable fubject by returning to the hound," an animal to whom we are obliged for fo much di verfion." After a cruel education, after being whipped through life at all feafons, even at every meal he makes, how is he rewarded at laft in return for the obligations acknowledged to him? His mafter's gratitude is thus prefcribed: - You fhould not keep too many old hounds: after five or fix feasons, they generally do more harm than good if they tire upon the fcent, and come hunting after, hang them up immediately, let their age be what it may.' 1. i. Of a truth, a (portfman is the most uniform confiftent cha'racter, from his own reprefentation, that we ever contemplated! ART. VII. »Sympathy: A Poem. 4to. 2s. 6d. Cadell. 1781. F EWfubjects afford a more spacious field for the display of poetical fentiment and imagery, than that which is felected by the Author of the Foem before us; and fo general and obvious in its effects is the influence of the fympathetic affections "on the happiness of human life, that the mind feels an involuntary impulfe to approve every attempt to do justice to qualities for amiable. With thefe advantages operating in its favour, has the prefent Poem been perused, The N. The Reader is defired to confider it only as a fketch of the focial paffion or fympathetic principle, applied, firft to the Author's particular fituation, and thence extended more generally as influencing the whole animal creation." The scene is laid at the villa of a friend, which the Writer visits in the absence of the family. The Poem commences with the following lines: O'er yon fair lawn, where oft in various talk Whence, unobferv'd, we view'd the world below; From land or ocean widely stretch'd along, The morning vapours palling through the vale, is a 10 MON The pointed cliff which overhangs the main, And every hut which neighbours on the green, 1 Had this paffage been broken into two or three distinct fentences, the fenfe might have been more clearly expreffed, and the ear would not have been fatigued, as it now is, by waiting through four and twenty lines for a period to reft at. Tinkling rills, lapfing refponfive to the lyre of Gray, is an image that the mind may admit and be delighted with; but when we are told that they more foftly touch the woe in Hammond's lay,' we have words it is true, but the idea they should convey (if indeed the Author had any clear and definite idea to convey) is of too fubtile a nature for common apprehenfions to lay hold of. But to go on with the Poem. After obferving that, notwithstanding the gloom that feems to be around him, neither the vegetable nor the animal world is in fympathy with his feelings, he proceeds: • Whence then the gloom that throuds the fummer fky? oh Oh fhould I follow where he leads the way, The herds, though now plain reason fees them feed, Bids willows whisper, and the cypress wave.' He then obliquely cenfures the common-place thoughts of elegiac poetafters, who (to apply an expression of Dr. Johnson's) write all that is unnatural, and nothing that is new. As poets fing, thus Fancy takes her range, Mourn'd their lov'd lord, and fought the defert fhade; His larks would fing, his lambs would frisk no more; At ev'ry folemn paufe, the raven scream'd, While ev'ry bower its leafy honours shed: Around his walks the Mufes wander'd flow, He infinuates, however, that he does not believe them; for, fays he, Separate facts from fairy fcenes like thefe, ໂດ |